(CNN) — Former US President Donald Trump on Friday lashed out at several women who have accused him of sexual assault…
(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump on Friday lashed out at several women who have accused him of sexual assault after attending a court hearing in New York to try to convince a federal appeals court that he should get a new trial after a jury found he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.
Addressing reporters from Trump Tower in New York, Trump attacked Carroll, again claiming he “never met her,” “never touched her” and that her claim was “fabricated.” Trump also took aim at two women who were witnesses at the trial: Jessica Leeds, who accused Trump of inappropriately touching her on an airplane in the 1970s, and Natasha Stoynoff, who claimed she was physically assaulted by Trump while on assignment for People magazine at his Mar-a-Lago estate in December 2005.
Trump called Leeds’ claim a “totally made-up story” and said she was a “huge Clinton supporter.” Refuting Leeds’ claim of sexual assault, he said she “would not have been the one.”
“Now, I guess she’s going to sue me for defamation, like E. Jean Carroll sued me,” Trump said. A federal judge ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll for his defamatory statements disparaging her and denying her rape allegations.
Jury verdict finds Trump liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll
“There were two witnesses. One is a woman who has followed me for years. She said that in 1979 she was on a plane with me, on a commercial flight. And we became very close. I sat down. I think she had the book, “The Art of the Deal,” it was already famous then, too. I’ve been famous for a long time. And we’re sitting in first class, according to her. It never happened, by the way. Totally made-up story. She’s also a Clinton person, by the way, big Clinton person. She made up the story,” Trump said.
Trump said: “She said I was kissing her, and then after fifteen minutes she changed her story a couple of times, maybe that it was faster, that I grabbed her at a certain part and that was when she had had enough. So think about the impracticality of this.”
“It couldn’t have happened, it didn’t happen, and she wouldn’t have been the one, she wouldn’t have been the one. She’s been telling this story for years,” Trump said.
Trump also called Natasha Stoynoff’s claim a “hoax.”
“She came to Mar-a-Lago and wrote the most beautiful story you’ve ever seen, it was a love story about Melania and me, a love story in People magazine. And that was it. It was a cover, I think,” Trump said.
“Years later, with no police reports, with nothing, years later, the same person, they called, ‘Did you assault this woman, this writer, whatever her name is, at Mar-a-Lago?’ And she was a witness in the case,” Trump said.
Trump recounted what one of his staffers, who said he was there when Stoynoff was at Mar-a-Lago, added: “He said, ‘The woman was crazy. It never happened.’”
“When you’re rich and famous, a lot of people make up a lot of stories,” Trump said.
